Storing Kid's Stuff

by Marlene Alexander

Anyone who has ever raised a kid or any number of kids knows that it is an ongoing struggle to get them to keep their rooms tidy. We supply them with hampers and hangers only to have dirty clothes tossed in the general direction of the intended receptacle and clean clothes piled in a crumpled heap in the middle of the floor. This last scenario is enough to make most mothers cringe, plead, and threaten our older offspring with the prospect of doing their own laundry.

Meanwhile, we continue to look for new ways to bring order to the chaos. Here are some colorful options from the dollar store that may help to inspire neatness in little ones.

We liked this three-tiered mesh storage unit for a dollar. The Velcro fastener makes it easy to hang it over the rod in the closet to store sweaters and other items of clothing or hang it on the back of the bedroom door for toy storage.

One dollar gets you this hanging organizer. It was originally meant for shoes, but it can also be hung by a child's desk to store pencils, markers, glue sticks and other small stationery items.

If your child has a fondness for a certain cartoon character, it isn't necessary to pay the bucks for every matching accessory with that character on it. For example, we decorated this plain orange garbage can with "silly old bear" wall stickers, which adhere to plastic items admirably and are easily replaced by whatever new character love your child may develop in their ever-changing world. Then we spied small storage baskets that were close matches to Winnie The Pooh yellow and Tigger orange. The idea is to look for useful items like these in colors that match your chosen theme. Wall or window stickers are a dollar per sheet, as are the plastic garbage and storage baskets.

Also shown are plastic child-sized hangers in red, blue, yellow and green. The package of eight was a dollar. You can also get hangers featuring animated cellulose icons like that yellow sponge guy or the young female explorer. They come in packages of three for a dollar.

Marlene Alexander is a writer living in Ontario, Canada. For more on dollar store shopping, visit her website at www.dollarstorestyle.com.